Etsy reacts to user outrage, makes changes to feedback system

Etsy has finally responded to privacy concerns brought up by its community …

Etsy has decided to stop linking to purchased items in a user's feedback in response to the chorus of privacy concerns coming from its user base. In a blog post published Tuesday, Etsy CEO Rob Kalin and COO Adam Freed said that the company's recent rollout of the People Search tool, combined with public feedback, highlighted the need for a reworked feedback system, and that more changes may be on the way.

Etsy had flipped the switch on its new People Search tool last week as part of its effort to make the site into more of a social media platform. When users run a search for a person's full name, that user's account will show up in the search results, even if that person is only a buyer. The goal is to allow users to connect to each other and create "Circles," which then allow users to see which products their friends have marked as favorites or purchased on Etsy.

Problems immediately began popping up. For one, buyers who had entered their full names into their Etsy profiles in the past were not all aware that the information would become public as a result of the People Search rollout. (Etsy claims it notified users, but numerous Etsy users insisted otherwise.) Then, users began noticing that they could easily look up a buyer's past purchases by searching for their real names, pulling up their profile pages, and examining the feedback left for or by Etsy sellers. Feedback on Etsy has always been public, but the combination of real names plus public feedback suddenly thrust Etsy into the spotlight for not doing enough to protect buyer privacy.

Some critics pointed out that Etsy users who had not logged on in months—and undoubtedly did not agree to the new privacy policy—were having their information exposed. "I just found a woman who's Etsy profile comes up on Google as the 5th link. I was expecting 6 or 7 pages down, but it's on the very first page, right after her online resumes," wrote one concerned user on the Penny Arcade forums. "She signed up a year ago, under the old privacy policy, and hasn't logged in since 2010. And now I know what dildo she uses. Right down to the curvature and coloring."

After making an appearance in our discussion thread on the topic, Kalin told Ars in an e-mail that the company had decided to escalate and address the situation directly, resulting in Tuesday's blog post.

"There was an article published on ArsTechnica that made clear how direct the connection was between using your real name on Etsy, buying an item and receiving public feedback for that item," Kalin and Freed wrote. "The reaction to this article has made us realize that we need to change the way our Feedback system works, and this is what we’ve already done today."

The two went on to explain that the current feedback system dates back to a time when payment for purchased items was sent after the Etsy checkout process was complete. Like the olden days of eBay, users had to rely on public feedback in order to see whether other buyers and sellers were reliable, but this is no longer the case since Etsy now requires payment before completing checkout. As of today, buyer and seller feedback no longer link directly to purchased items and the site is considering further changes to the system to protect buyer privacy. (It's worth noting that they have not yet addressed user concerns about being automatically opted-into the People Search feature.)

"In the future, we may provide an option to share individual purchases publicly at the time of purchase. This will be completely opt-in and on a purchase-by-purchase basis," the team wrote.

The other element of concern from Etsy's community came from the staff's apparent unwillingness to take the privacy concerns seriously up to this point. A 120-page thread in Etsy's forums about the People Search rollout ended up getting locked, and another (now 32-page) thread that specifically asked about privacy went largely ignored. Kalin and Freed didn't directly address this, but did acknowledge that the community's trust is important to Etsy and that the company would be listening carefully to user feedback.

"We take privacy very seriously," the two wrote. "We are deeply sorry for any confusion and will work hard to regain your trust."

It never ceases to amaze me how frequently companies will consistently ignore the concerns of their very own devoted userbase, but will scramble like hell once a little outside media attention is applied.

There has to be some kind of psychological/sociological principle involved here because it isn't just a common response - it's the standard response, and it's so obviously stupid and destructive,

This isn't "social networking": this is social engineering, and not the good kind. Isn't it interesting that it's "social engineering" when hackers and criminals do it, but it's "social networking" when a corporation does the same thing for selfish ends?

Well, my email (including spam) would indicate otherwise. I have never seen a new TOC at sign on.

I've only purchased a couple of things on their site. My account has been deleted. I've no desire to be part of someone's "Circlejerk of Friends" feature. At least not without my explicit permission. And, really, is it necessary? Every single thing I've purchased from Etsy was found via a web search.

And you know, that's really too bad. Sure Etsy has some dingbat stuff for sale. But some folks do have nice little storefronts with good items at reasonable prices. It will only hurt them.

Thanks for reporting on this Jacqui, it's funny how they suddenly did an about face on this after your earlier article, isn't it? Despite all of the feedback they already had...

I guess it's good they are making an effort to fix things, but that the situation deteriorated so far (not to menion Kalin's reply here) is really disheartening. I'll still buy from etsy sellers when I find things I like for now, but... hopefully they'll find somewhere else to call home if this continues in a similar vein.

crustytheclown wrote:

I guess I have no idea what Etsy is.

Obviously, which leads one to ask why you even posted. Please leave the "first" stuff to slashdot or wherever.

Obviously, which leads one to ask why you even posted. Please leave the "first" stuff to slashdot or wherever.

Thanks for dwelling on it. If you must know...I Googled Etsy and saw a bunch of antiques. Didn't quite fit the great articles found on Ars so I clicked to post a question, which turned into a bad post. Cant delete posts here. Oh well. I will ride this 'till the wheels fall off. Wouldn't be the first bad post and wont be the last.

Tremendously stupid move by Etsy to start with, but this is a pretty competent PR response. Acknowledge the mistake, own up to the user outrage (no bogus "it was a technical glitch we would have fixed anyway"), explain the intent, and propose new ways to achieve that intent without the huge downsides. The only real shortcomings are the weaselly "sorry for any confusion" and the lack of a plan for getting the offending results off of Google, etc.

[ ... ] but this is a pretty competent PR response. Acknowledge the mistake, own up to the user outrage (no bogus "it was a technical glitch we would have fixed anyway"), explain the intent, and propose new ways to achieve that intent without the huge downsides. The only real shortcomings are the weaselly "sorry for any confusion" and the lack of a plan for getting the offending results off of Google, etc.

I'd like to agree with you, but I don't feel like I can. I think this is a terribly hollow feeling response. Maybe they owned up to it, maybe they claimed user feedback is important, but their own actions up to this point paint a very different picture about how they feel about their own users... even just Kalin's post here in the other thread seemed, well, practically flippant... and such a nebulous statement with no strong action to rectify their actions up until now regarding their treatment of user feedback just seems entirely insincere to me at least.

Quote:

A 120-page thread in Etsy's forums about the People Search rollout ended up getting locked, and another (now 32-page) thread that specifically asked about privacy went largely ignored. Kalin and Freed didn't directly address this, but did acknowledge that the community's trust is important to Etsy and that the company would be listening carefully to user feedback.

I mean, these are in direct contradiction to each other. One is what they've been doing (for a long time even, apparently, regarding user feedback), the other is an empty statement until they show they even can actually act upon it. "Good" PR, to me at least, would have been to release an action statement on HOW they plan to fix their issues with user feedback, with at least something to be implemented in the very short term as an initial measure for a show of good will. You'd still have to take their word for it, but it would at least show someone gave it some actual thought beyond mouthing some platitudes.

It's hard to have any confidence in the words of a company that has been shown to simply shut down users whose feedback it doesn't agree with, or which tickled particular administrators the wrong way, all without any apparent consistent much less transparent policy even. It's going to take a lot more than just some sweet nothings.

Quote:

Best pic/article combination evar.

Well it's definitely a good one xD I did love that the source was an etsy shop, nice touch =^,~=

For anyone that questions the email that Etsy sent out, the wording and time when they implemented this stuff is listed in the email below. They do not go into much if any details about what the features entail and even state that certain things (Etsy circle) are already implemented prior to the sending of the email. It would have been nice if this was opt-in only and more information included. Also Etsy was stupid with this move and it was a pure money grab and social engineering was used to lull people/existing customers in.

This is the message I received on January 30 from Etsy.

subject: An important message about a new feature and our Privacy Policy

Hello!

We recently launched a new feature, Circles, that lets you connect with other people on Etsy. When you add someone to your Etsy circle, you can follow along with their favorites in your activity feed. It's illuminating!

Right now it's hard to find people you know on Etsy, and that's sad. Well, we're changing that. We're making it easy to connect your email address book to Etsy, so we can find people you know who are also members.

(If you don't want people you know to be able to find you, you will be able easily to opt out through your account privacy settings.)

We're letting you know about this in advance, and will be launching this feature in mid-February.

Etsy's response hasn't fixed anything. They've decided to solve the problem in the most back-assward way possible. Instead of making information which should stay private (like real names) opt-in, they've completely shut down a valuable feedback system which was working perfectly well. They've sacrificed a genuinely social aspect of their commerce system (users used to be able to leave appreciation images for each other for example) in order to keep people forced into Etsy's vision of what social commerce should mean.

And I'll just add my voice to the others chorusing, "Why do corporations ignore their own users and only respond to outside pressure?" In Etsy's case, it's because Rob Kalin and the other people running the company apparently have nothing but contempt for their users.

[ ... ] but this is a pretty competent PR response. Acknowledge the mistake, own up to the user outrage (no bogus "it was a technical glitch we would have fixed anyway"), explain the intent, and propose new ways to achieve that intent without the huge downsides. The only real shortcomings are the weaselly "sorry for any confusion" and the lack of a plan for getting the offending results off of Google, etc.

I'd like to agree with you, but I don't feel like I can. I think this is a terribly hollow feeling response. Maybe they owned up to it, maybe they claimed user feedback is important, but their own actions up to this point paint a very different picture about how they feel about their own users... even just Kalin's post here in the other thread seemed, well, practically flippant... and such a nebulous statement with no strong action to rectify their actions up until now regarding their treatment of user feedback just seems entirely insincere to me at least.

I hear you, but you're basically saying that your judgment of them is going to be on past behavior, and that there's nothing they could say now to convince you that they will act differently in the future. That's a reasonable position, but it sets the bar so high that of course any PR response is going to fail to sway you.

Words can only do so much, especially with users who are strongly disillusioned. So I think they did a good job with the words, and I'll leave it to you and other stakeholders to determine whether there's any meaningful change in behavior.

[ ... ] but this is a pretty competent PR response. Acknowledge the mistake, own up to the user outrage (no bogus "it was a technical glitch we would have fixed anyway"), explain the intent, and propose new ways to achieve that intent without the huge downsides. The only real shortcomings are the weaselly "sorry for any confusion" and the lack of a plan for getting the offending results off of Google, etc.

I'd like to agree with you, but I don't feel like I can. I think this is a terribly hollow feeling response. Maybe they owned up to it, maybe they claimed user feedback is important, but their own actions up to this point paint a very different picture about how they feel about their own users... even just Kalin's post here in the other thread seemed, well, practically flippant... and such a nebulous statement with no strong action to rectify their actions up until now regarding their treatment of user feedback just seems entirely insincere to me at least.

I hear you, but you're basically saying that your judgment of them is going to be on past behavior, and that there's nothing they could say now to convince you that they will act differently in the future. That's a reasonable position, but it sets the bar so high that of course any PR response is going to fail to sway you.

Words can only do so much, especially with users who are strongly disillusioned. So I think they did a good job with the words, and I'll leave it to you and other stakeholders to determine whether there's any meaningful change in behavior.

You would only think they did a good job if the Ars article is the first you heard of this. They were actively ignoring their users by locking threads in their forums, or just not responding. Only when other places on the internet picked up the story did they cave to outside pressure. I don't know why you would treat your loyal users so poorly, but respond to non-customer demands. Seems very backwards and pretty much defines "the least they could do."

You're a start-up without much money. Things are growing and people are subscribing. You're taking their cash, so you're sort of obligated to help them solve problems and use your cool features, but you can't afford to hire and train an actual Help Staff. So what do you do? Forums! Create a community, users will magically solve each other's problems, and it won't cost you anything!

Profit.

So now you've got forums and a community is growing, but who's going to be responsible for this beast? I know, let's have one of those jackasses in Marketing handle it. Marketing, Community Relations, that's kind of the same thing, right? Sure, whatever. As long as I can't be blamed if it all goes tits-up, right?

But you need to understand that there's an inherent conflict of interest here. Marketing's job is to promote the company message. To get the message OUT. They are a one-way mechanism. They are not designed to get outside messages IN. Besides, what if the feedback from the community contradicts what the Marketing guys are telling you? Do you honestly think they're going to sit down across the table from you and give you an honest answer, if that answer implies that they aren't doing their jobs and making people think what you want them to think?

And what you end up with is upper management who never, ever look at their own forums, who have no idea what the community thinks, and is insulated by people who they don't trust and who wouldn't tell them the truth anyway. Nothing that comes from the community ever makes it to people who can actually implement changes or react to feedback.

So when does upper management became aware that something has gone utterly haywire? When Ars publishes an article about it and the mess becomes to big for the jackass from Marketing to continue not bringing it up.

I am cautiously (stupidly?) optimistic after reading Etsy's response to the concerns raised in the first Ars article. They had better be aware that it BARELY squeaks by as acceptable.

Actions speak louder than words. They still have a chance to redeem themselves in my eyes. They will now be judged by their users on how they handle not only this ridiculous situation, but also any and every other concern brought before them (in Etsy forums or elsewhere) by their buyers and sellers - most importantly their sellers, without whom they have nothing.

I completely agree with Taswyn:

"It's hard to have any confidence in the words of a company that has been shown to simply shut down users whose feedback it doesn't agree with, or which tickled particular administrators the wrong way, all without any apparent consistent much less transparent policy even. It's going to take a lot more than just some sweet nothings."

WE PAY YOU, ETSY. This means our problems are your problems and it is your job to HUMBLY address our concerns and take us seriously. It would be to your benefit to at least learn that lesson from this mess. Time will tell.

Please don't give them a pass on this. This is more punative for the sellers that sell on this site than it is a genuine fix for etsy's privacy problems. I'm pretty sure they sunk a lot of time and money into findability, circles, stalk your neighbor program and do not want to admit to the fact that the entire system is fucked. Its easier to say ha its all you guy's fault this happened. We are actually business people. We sort of know what buyers want and need and privacy is paramount in a web retail situation. ETSY IS looking to cash in. We are the unfortunate collateral damage. Go back to what you do well being the place to buy and sell all things vintage handmade and supplies. Leave facebook to facebook.

Cocky half assed over corrections made in desperation and saving face do not make you look like you fixed it or that you really care. You sell this dream about community when at every chance you get you destroy the very thing you claim to be creating. The site as it stands right now is a shell of the vibrant, colorful, cheeky venue it once was.

The fallout for your sellers, who have faithfully gotten your site to the point it is at right now (remember you don't advertise, so every dollar you recieve is literally made off of the backs of some poor sellers blood sweat and tears) you have thrown your sellers under the bus. Their very livelihoods are the thing suffering because of your lack of judgement and inability to listen to the collective voice of your community. You created this and you better get out there and start kissing as much ass and aww shucksing yourself into the interwebs good graces or i fear a mass exodus of epic proportions.

"There was an article published on ArsTechnica that made clear ..." Kalin and Freed wrote. "...this article has made us realize that we need to change the way our Feedback system works, and this is what we’ve already done today."

Way to go ArsTechnica! Keep these bastards in check. Now can you please get Facebook under control next?

Redress, this is exactly right. The two main underlying problems remain: insisting that we stay opted-in and not notifying all users of changes that affect privacy. An email has obviously gone out to some users, but it also just as obviously did not go out to everyone. As an example, the way they notified users of today's changes to feedback privacy was through a forum announcement and a blog entry. If you're subscribed to the blog feed, you got personally notifed, but otherwise the onus is on you to check the etsy blog and forums everyday I guess.

Rob and Etsy admins have been stating that most of the changes have been in place for months, but they are completely avoiding acknowledging the issue of information that can be aggregated. So, do I mind sharing my real name? No. Do I mind sharing my email? Probably not. Do I mind sharing my Etsy username and favorites? No. Do I mind when all three of these are combined together without my consent or knowledge? Yes!

You would only think they did a good job if the Ars article is the first you heard of this.

Sigh. Truly, nuance is dead.

All I said was that this particular PR response followed best practices. That can *still* be true even if they have a terrible history of customer service, and even if they are going to go on a murderous rampage tomorrow and assassinate anyone who's ever said anything negative about 'em. THIS PR RESPONSE can still be nicely done.

Note to the world: when someone says "Dave's well dressed today," it does *not* mean that you approve of all of his life choices, that he's a genuinely nice guy, or that you even like him a little bit. It is possible to have different opinions about a part than you do about the whole.

Canadian Girl hit the nail on the head!****Etsy's response hasn't fixed anything. They've decided to solve the problem in the most back-assward way possible. Instead of making information which should stay private (like real names) opt-in, they've completely shut down a valuable feedback system which was working perfectly well. They've sacrificed a genuinely social aspect of their commerce system (users used to be able to leave appreciation images for each other for example) in order to keep people forced into Etsy's vision of what social commerce should mean.

And I'll just add my voice to the others chorusing, "Why do corporations ignore their own users and only respond to outside pressure?" In Etsy's case, it's because Rob Kalin and the other people running the company apparently have nothing but contempt for their users.*************They've instead punished the sellers on Etsy by virtually shutting down the feedback system - the very system sellers have used to build trust with their buyers. They say the feedback system is the reason why their is no privacy . . . . IT IS NOT THE REASON - it is all their other tinkering around they did and once they were called out on the privacy breach, rather than remove all the names of everyone that did not opt into this of their own will, they shut down feedback??!!?? WTF!! Peoples names are still out there - they are still searchable - you can still see what they favorite - including plastic dildo's, bongs, whips, chains, and god knows what else. They haven't fixed the problem at all - instead they just created another clusterfuck!

It really doesn't matter what Etsy does or doesn't do now. They can't un-betray the trust of their customers. Etsy has now provided ample evidence that it cares deeply how the media portrays Etsy's treatment of account holders, and excessive evidence that they hold absolutely no regard for how their account holders view of the way they themselves are treated by Etsy.

They're trying to obfuscate the issue in their blog post many times by purposely ignoring the issues, one instance is when he/them 'addresses' the question of people having the ability to enter their names when signing up:

"We added the option to enter your real name when registering. Right next to this text field, it says: "Your full name will appear on your public profile. This is optional." Some people enter their name, some don't. As of right now, 25% of people (including us) have entered their real name."

This is pure lies by purposely omitting information. *Now* it has that option, but before this whole fiasco none of that was there and there was no information stating that it was optional, he's still trying to give people the impression that that is how it always was. Pure PR schlock, this guy's are obviously slimy and shouldn't be running Etsy and this behavior does not promote the type of corporate culture it should have; they take no remorse or responsibility for what they and their team have done and continues to try and mislead and spread false information to people and it is basically insulting our intelligence to boot. Being a CEO/COO does not mean you have to be a heartless and spineless individual with no concept of responsibility, you should have actually the opposite of those qualities. Etsy as a site and a vision deserves better and this type of behavior spreads to the lower employees like virus when there is not proper leadership. (I'm more offended becuase of the the past few days I've seen *many* examples of this type of outright lying and PR schlock, not just at this one issue.)

Edit:

Gotta say, what is it and this "social" BS that's spreading around the web like a disease nowadays? Did they not see what happened to Facebook and its Beacon? Did they not see the nigh complete destruction of Digg in its lame attempt to be the next 'Facebook' of something? I can see it now, snake oil salesmen ringing the doorbells of every web 2.0 company selling them on this ridiculous concept which seems to be at its core a complete contempt for its users that made their sites and a healthy dash of a lack of respect for their users privacy and plain dignity. Who are these poeple, did all these guys attend the same conference on this or something? Who is going to be the next victim?

Redress, this is exactly right. The two main underlying problems remain: insisting that we stay opted-in and not notifying all users of changes that affect privacy. An email has obviously gone out to some users, but it also just as obviously did not go out to everyone. As an example, the way they notified users of today's changes to feedback privacy was through a forum announcement and a blog entry. If you're subscribed to the blog feed, you got personally notifed, but otherwise the onus is on you to check the etsy blog and forums everyday I guess.

Rob and Etsy admins have been stating that most of the changes have been in place for months, but they are completely avoiding acknowledging the issue of information that can be aggregated. So, do I mind sharing my real name? No. Do I mind sharing my email? Probably not. Do I mind sharing my Etsy username and favorites? No. Do I mind when all three of these are combined together without my consent or knowledge? Yes!

Edit: I actually did receive an email form them on Jan 30'th mentioning circles, but I had no idea from the email that my information and purchases was going to be expunged on the internet forever.

They tried to hide it under the carpet and hope nobody notices ...uh guys, how stupid do you think the people of the internet really are, have you not learned form the innumerable examples of the past? And if you felt you had to hide this from poeple, why not ask yourself ...hey maybe we shouldn't be doing this. member when you were a little kid and you didn't want to tell momma and daddy something? Yeah you knew you were doing something wrong at 5 years old, so what happened?

I began to mistrust the Etsy powers over issues that really aren't particularly technical. I hit the wall technically over a mini-clusterfu several months back regarding the calculation and collection of state sales tax. Every e-commerce site from Amazon to Zibbett seems to be able to handle sales tax issues, and Etsy sellers had been happily relying on PayPal to handle theirs. The sales tax application was completely wrong. It used the wrong basis for calculating the tax, it made no provisions for people with more than one type of tax to assess (for example state and municipal), and I'm not sure what it did for non-US residents with other types of tax to calculate. As it was rolled out, it could conceivably have gotten any seller in deep trouble with any state taxation agency for improperly charging sales tax. As it was, it left sellers making lame-sounding apologies, issuing refunds, and making up differences out of their own pockets. It was loaded with errors. Cries of anguish resounded in the forums, and they fixed it; as far as I know, it works OK for most people. But why on earth would you release an application without rigorous testing and revision and apparently without even doing an analysis of how sales taxes are charged in various states and countries?

I received the same vague mailing in mid-January, and I was uneasy enough because of the tax screw-up to begin trying to fix my privacy settings even then. I've revisited them several times. I'd have to be concerned that some angry buyer, somewhere, might decide to get even by suing the hell out of everybody, the seller included. I maintain a small presence on Etsy, but I've long since moved my good stuff to another site.

Remember them. Never trust them with anything. They are profoundly disturbed -- either unspeakably stupid, or really supreme a-holes. Anyone who could abuse their power so thoroughly should never get another break. I mean, how could a bright person not know that showing users' purchases would be ethical and acceptable? Or, how could a good person not resist the greedy urge to do it?

These 2 guys go on the black list now, for good. Character is usually not reparable. They should be shunned and shamed. What phenomenal losers. Great people don't do thinkg this stupid or this mean. They make mistakes along the way, but not of this kind.